6: Chapter 6: A Desperate Charge and the Cavalry Being Devoured
Su Chen's divine realm was a world of swirling yellow sand.
He could never have dreamed in his wildest nightmares.
That what he had pushed open with his own hands was not a door leading to endless treasures.
But a yawning, fang-filled abyssal maw that had long been lying in wait.
BOOM!
The space above the temple was violently torn asunder, a black vortex reeking of dense swamp stench brutally ripped open.
Chaotic energy currents surged outward, whipping up the sky-filling yellow sand, forming a savage scar connecting the two planes.
The two hundred most elite Swamp Giant Crocodile cavalry from among the Lizardmen leaped roaring from that profound darkness.
"For Guldan!"
The leading Lizardman captain, brandishing a heavy hammer carved from a behemoth's leg bone, let out a bloodthirsty war cry.
The Swamp Giant Crocodile beneath him sank its stout limbs deep into the soft sand the moment it landed, its spiked tail lashing impatiently, churning up a sand wave over ten meters high.
The turbid air, the parched earth, and the viciously scorching sun overhead all caused a flicker of discomfort in these creatures accustomed to damp gloom.
But this flicker of discomfort was quickly smothered by the excitement ignited by the impending carnage.
In their understanding, this conflict could hardly even be called a war.
It was more akin to a hunt.
A one-sided crushing of lowly insects.
Black Armored Ants?
Those fragile creatures you could crush into paste with a single foot—what disturbance could they possibly stir, no matter their numbers?
They were merely an appetizer to be offered to their divine master, Lord Guldan.
"Charge!"
"Crush them!"
The cavalry captain issued the command, his voice dripping with condescending scorn.
RUMBLE—
Two hundred Swamp Giant Crocodiles began their heavy advance, the earth trembling in response. This green torrent of scales, fangs, and rusted iron left a filthy, ugly trail across the golden canvas.
They intended to eradicate every living thing on this land with the utmost speed and the cruelest methods.
Then, to drag out that insect god cowering and trembling in its nest and offer it to the great God of Lizards.
However, after charging several hundred meters, the fanaticism in the cavalry captain's heart gradually gave way to a peculiar feeling.
Why was it so quiet?
Too quiet.
A deathly stillness surrounded them. Aside from the thunder they themselves produced and the eternal, mournful wind whistling through the sand, there was no sign of any other life.
No anticipated Zerg Swarm charge.
No panicked resistance.
Not even the shadow of a single ant was to be seen.
The entire expanse of sand was emptily, unnervingly vast.
"Could it be... they got word in advance and fled in terror?"
An absurd thought flashed through his mind.
Those lowly insects, merely sensing the aura of their divine master, should have already been scared witless, abandoning all resistance.
In that moment of his brief distraction.
A sudden mutation occurred!
CRUNCH!
A scream of utter agony erupted from beneath him.
It was not the voice of a Lizardman, but that of his most trusted mount, the battle-hardened Swamp Giant Crocodile!
The cavalry captain felt a sudden void beneath him, a violent sense of weightlessness instantly seizing him!
The massive, multi-ton beast between his legs, its colossal body, abruptly and without warning, plummeted downward!
The scene before his eyes shook violently.
The once flat, solid sand now resembled a punctured waterskin, forming a massive quicksand vortex centered on his mount.
Golden sand grains frantically collapsed inward, revealing the hair-raising sight below—
Those were not natural caverns!
They were densely packed, interconnected deep tunnels, their structure as complex as a subterranean hive city!
It was a trap!
This realization exploded in his mind in the same instant.
Before any Lizardman warrior could react.
SCREEE—!
A piercing, high-pitched shriek, as if capable of puncturing eardrums and rending souls, erupted violently from the depths of the earth!
The sound did not come from a single throat, but was formed by the convergence of thousands upon thousands of sources, creating a destructive sonic wave!
Immediately after.
Countless black lightning bolts shot forth from the collapsing sand and the dark, deep tunnels!
Their targets were precisely those Swamp Giant Crocodiles trapped in the sand pits, their movements hindered!
They were Su Chen's subjects, who had lain in ambush here for who knows how long!
Devouring Steel-toothed Ants!
"What... what in the hell are these things?!"
The cavalry captain's pupils constricted to dangerous pinpricks.
Fear, for the first time, crept across his face covered in coarse scales.
What leaped up were not the fragile Black Armored Ants of his understanding!
They were giant war machines, each the size of a prairie hound!
Their entire bodies were encased in armor as thick and heavy as black iron, their carapaces gleaming with a cold metallic luster, brimming with a sense of power and destructive aesthetics.
That was not a biological carapace; it was unmistakably tempered steel!
The ends of their grotesque limbs were sharp barbs, each step leaving deep imprints in the sand.
And the pair of enormous metallic mandibles on their heads flashed with a chilling, ghostly light as they opened and closed.
"Attack! Attack now!"
After a brief moment of stunned paralysis, the cavalry captain roared with a mix of shock and fury.
He leveraged his waist, leaping forcefully from the sinking crocodile's back, gripping the bone hammer with both hands, and smashed it with all his might onto the back of the nearest Steel-Fanged Ant!
This hammer blow was powerful enough to pulverize granite!
He could almost already see the scene: the monster's carapace shattering, dark green fluids splattering everywhere.
However!
CLANG—!
A sharp, ear-piercing metallic clash exploded over the battlefield.
Sparks flew wildly from the creature's back.
An irresistible, terrifying recoil force surged violently through the bone hammer into his arms.
The skin at the base of his thumbs split instantly, blood streaming forth.
The sturdy bone hammer was actually sent rebounding high!
He looked down, his heart nearly stopping.
His full-force, sure-hit strike had merely left a shallow, almost negligible white scratch on that Steel-Fanged Ant's back!
"No... impossible!"
"What kind of defensive power is this?!"
The cavalry captain fell into complete stupefaction.
Having fought in the swamps for decades, he had never witnessed such terrifying physical resistance.
Was this truly a living creature?
But the Zerg Swarm gave him no time for thought or shock.
CRUNCH!
The Steel-Fanged Ant he had attacked seemed thoroughly enraged.
It abruptly raised its head, opened that pair of enormous metallic mandibles, and with a speed utterly at odds with its bulk, clamped down on the neck of the Swamp Giant Crocodile still struggling in the quicksand!
The crocodile's hard scales, capable of withstanding sword slashes, were as fragile as thin paper before those mandibles.
There was no resistance whatsoever.
It was like a red-hot knife slicing through cold butter.
The hard scales, the thick flesh, along with the sturdy cervical bone inside, were cleanly sheared off by those terrifying mandibles!
SPURT—!
Scalding blood gushed forth in a crimson fountain, dyeing the golden sand a shocking dark red.
This bloody and shocking scene became the final straw that broke the camel's back.
The once ferocious cavalry formation completely collapsed in that moment.
Five thousand fully armed Black Armored Ants, coordinated with the one hundred second-tier peak Steel-Fanged Ants serving as the vanguard, like a black tide surging from hell, instantly engulfed the two hundred elite cavalry.
Screams of agony.
The sickening crunch of bones being forcibly snapped.
The tearing sound of carapaces being pierced.
The viscous sound of flesh being frantically chewed.
Countless sounds intertwined, composing the most primitive, most bloody symphony of death.
In the span of mere breaths.
The battle was already over.
No, that was not a battle.
It was a slaughter.
A one-sided feeding frenzy with no suspense whatsoever.
And at the still-open entrance to the planar rift.
The smile on Guldan's face had completely frozen.
His massive frame stood at the edge of the darkness, the vertical pupils that once burned with the flames of desire now held only boundless horror and stupefaction.
He watched, trembling, the one-sided massacre on the other side of the vortex. A bone-chilling cold, starting from the swamp mud at his feet, brutally surged up to the crown of his skull, making it feel as if all the blood in his body was about to freeze.
"These... these are Black Armored Ants?!"
He squeezed out a few dry syllables from his throat, his voice becoming sharp and distorted from extreme shock.
On that expanse of yellow sand, there were no fragile insects to be seen.
"This is simply a horde of... a horde of demons clad in steel!!"